1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a technique of reducing document generating time period for printing by a printing apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, there is a technique that generates document data in a prescribed format when printing a document by a printing apparatus, and performs printing thereof. For example, printing of a form is carried out through the following two-step procedure.
First, a form is generated by dynamically inserting real data (referred to as “insertion data” from now on) such as a company name and a sum of money into a form template including predefined ruled lines and a logotype. This is generating processing of a document.
Next, the generated form is printed by a printing apparatus. This is printing processing of the document. The generating processing of a document does not include the printing processing. Thus, the generating processing of a document and the printing processing are processing separate from each other.
Generally, the document generating processing such as that of a form is put under heavy load and takes a long time. A major cause thereof is that composing processing places a heavy load. The term “composing processing” means processing of calculating positions of individual characters in character strings according to font information and placing them. Thus, the document generation takes a long time, thereby offering a problem of requiring a long time for a user to obtain a desired printed matter.
To solve the problem, a technique of dividing and generating a document on a page by page basis is common conventionally as the processing of reducing the document generating time period (see Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2005-235108, for example). The technique of dividing and generating the document on a page by page basis reduces the generating time period of the document by the following processing. More specifically, it divides the insertion data on a page by page basis, transmits the divided insertion data to a plurality of document generating servers or processing apparatuses such as printing apparatuses, and shares the generating processing of the documents among the processing apparatuses. Then, the documents generated by the processing apparatuses are brought together to a particular processing apparatus so that the particular processing apparatus combines the documents, thereby reducing the generating time period of the document.
The foregoing conventional technique, however, divides the insertion data on a page by page basis. Thus, depending on the dividing position, a desired document cannot be generated sometimes. For example, consider a case that generates a document by assigning page 1 to a processing apparatus A and page 2 to a processing apparatus B, and that requires the page 2 following the dividing portion to display the aggregate of sums through the page 1 before the dividing portion and the page 2 by calculating it. In this case, since the processing apparatus B for generating page 2 does not have the sum data on page 1, it cannot calculate the aggregate, thereby offering a problem of being unable to generate the document correctly.